


Sanctuary

by infunpants



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, which is. yeah basically, working title was "vaguely homoerotic serf/monk story"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-21 23:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infunpants/pseuds/infunpants
Summary: I recognized a boy, about my age, with hard features and a blank expression, but could not mark what about him was so familiar. The instant that word, familiar, traced my mind, I knew who he was. I had only seen him once before, but I would never forget.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for a school assignment but got like, WAY too into it.

The air was cold and crisp on the night I fled. 

It tore through my tunic and calfskin cloak, ice whipping into my core. My feet grew stiff inside the worn leather boots I’d gotten two Christmases ago. I gathered my single pouch beneath my arm as I ran, tripping over the untamed roots of trees. Their spindly trunks grew just as thickly together when dodging through their midst as they had when I used to watch them from afar. I picked myself up from the ground after taking a nasty dive, dirtier than before but not much worse for wear, and continued my escape without pause. Snatching up a sturdy twig, I began to brush it against the ground as I ran, giving myself a split-second warning for whatever obstacle may have blocked my path. 

In the quiet, all encompassing darkness, I could feel my solitude entrenching me like a pall over a coffin. The only sounds to touch my ears were the breath of my mouth, the sighing wind, and the twitching and popping of branches as I crushed them underfoot. I knew not where I was going, but only what certainty lay behind. Running, even towards my own death, was far better than any alternative of staying my mind could conjure.

I continued on in that manner for what felt like an hour, but truth be told I had no idea how long I was out there. The rest of the manor could be waking up soon, and anxiety quickened my gait as I imagined the sight behind me. 

News of my disappearance would arrive before daybreak, when those I left behind would rub sleep from their eyes and see no sign of me. I knew the lord didn’t care enough to form a search party and scour the grounds for me, but rationality could be damned in the darkness. 

I was still stumbling over the ragged roots despite my stick, and each time found it harder to regain my stance. My body ached from the exertion, for though I was used to the labor of plowing, I had not joined many Sunday races as a younger boy and had a low tolerance for tge kind of running I now engaged. The pain splitting my side was so severe and unfamiliar that I could not touch it, for fear my hand would reveal a dark shining blood upon pulling away, and my final hours would begin to tick away. 

It was only a delusion, of course, the fearful fantasy of a lonely mind. Still, I did not stop to check, and I did not cease thinking of it. Indeed, I became so preoccupied with my impending mortality that I almost didn’t see the lightness ahead. 

It was not a Light, as in a candle or fire raging, but a patch of pale grey, barely visible beyond the dark and shadowed thicket. I thought at first that it must be a lake, although I had not heard of any lakes hereabouts in my prior discussions with freedmen working the manor. To be so pale and unmoving, the surface must be placid. I knew moving water was better for drinking, but any amount of water had to be better than none at all, so I set towards it. 

After a time, I realized that it was not a lake, but a stone wall, the bricks stacked in an orderly fashion I had previously only seen on my lord’s castle. The sight of them filled me with fear, but I dared not turn away. I had kept a straight path through the woods, and knew that whatever structure I was approaching could not be of the same walls I had fled. If it was another manor, at least they would not know me there. I continued on. 

After several minutes of walking I neared the wall enough that I could follow its horizon and see the curve of a single tower in the distance. I held my hand to the surface, walking slowly to recover from my sprint. The tower stretched so far into the sky I thought it must be leaning over to cover me as I passed under it. I held my breath until I had made it to the other side, though I could not say why. 

The stone wall led me eventually to a large wooden door, and I stood in front of it for quite some time. It was late, far too late to bother whatever nobleman might be waiting inside, even if only to offer my services as a freedman. Lord, I was a freedman now. 

At that moment a gust of wind, having carved its path through the trees, blew about my very soul and I shuddered horribly. My decision made for me, I raised an arm to knock firmly on the door, once, then twice. The sound was dull though, weak, for fatigue and the thick wood of the door. I cradled my hand to my chest; the cold and the banging made my bones feel a moment from shattering. I could not hear anyone on the other side of the door. 

As the cold burned my ears, I could not hear anything but my own thoughts echoing around my skull. They told me I would not survive the night. 

I had been about to collapse to the ground, make a nasty frozen gift for the next person to wander by, when a miracle occurred. A flickering flame emerged from the icy blackness; I cried at the sight, praying the wind would not blow it out. 

So caught up was I in the beauty of fire that I almost didn’t put together that, for me to see this, someone must be holding a candle. Someone must have opened the door. I gasped and blinked several times in quick succession, adjusting my eyes to this new light. 

The first thing I could process when I saw my saviour was that they wore a dark hood, which draped their face in shadow. I could not tell if they were man or woman; for a second, I could not be sure they were human. Their features were hidden completely by the darkness, and I realized I must look much the same, so threw down my own hood as a show of faith. My saviour did not respond in kind, but held the candle towards me. I could not see their eyes, but knew with uncanny certainty that they were fixed on me, examining me. I hoped I could pass the test, and sent out a prayer as they pulled the flame back, illuminating their own face.

I recognized a boy, about my age, with hard features and a blank expression, but could not mark what about him was so familiar. The instant that word, familiar, traced my mind, I knew who he was. I had only seen him once before, but I would never forget. 

Five summers ago, the manor had come under attack. A call went up mid-morning, interrupting farmwork. I had not seen anything amiss, but I suppose the invaders were only visible from the guard towers set around the lord’s castle. 

Immediately, my father dropped his tools and grabbed my arm, herding me towards the castle. My mother ran out of the hut a second later, cradling my sister Charlotte in her arms, still a babe. I did not understand what was happening, but followed them as they began to race for the great stone walls. 

Other families were running too, all in one massive race to reach the castle. Some people fell, tripped by the uneven ground or by farming tools abandoned with no thought. No one stopped to help them up. 

When finally we reached the large doors of the castle, people poured in so quickly and in such great amount that I feared the inside must be a sea of bodies, feet still running and kicking. 

I was not far off. There was barely an inch of free floorspace inside, although the castle was as large as a hundred huts combined. My family only stuck together by grasping each other’s clothing, holding on for dear life as we were pushed further inside the walls. People huddled together, clutching children and shaking. I didn’t understand why, until I pressed my own hands together in a silent prayer, and felt them shaking too. 

I did not speak then, but watched the door. That which I saw terrified me. 

Knights barricaded the doors, pushing people back, preventing entry. I didn’t know much, didn’t know that those people being pushed back were freedmen, and were not permitted to seek sanctuary with the rest of us. However, I had put together enough to know that staying outside the walls equaled certain death, or worse. 

I took strides to the door, not knowing what I would do when I reached it, but knowing that I must do something. Knowing that what I saw was wrong. 

I never did find out what might have happened though, because my mother tightened her grip on my tunic, pulling me to her. She held me under one arm, Charlotte in the other, and breathed into my hair, choked but firm, pleading and demanding all at once. “Please,” she begged me. “Please, my son, do not go.” 

I thought she might be on the verge of tears. I stayed. 

To this day, I do not know if I regret that decision. 

I learned much that afternoon, huddled in the center of the crowd among other frightened people, watching the projectiles sail over the wall and into our midst. The things I saw that day, crushed by bodies on either side as flaming heads, livestock, even whole people were launched into the crowd… I learned very much, indeed. 

I knew many faces in that mass, studied them over the hours spent waiting out the battle, us peasants having nothing to look at but each other. 

The face beyond the wooden door in the stone wall that I had found myself looking at was not one of them. He had not been crying, holding a family member, holding himself. If I remember correctly, he had been shouting, actually. 

After two relentless hours hiding, I grew tired of the endless misery. I had not been born sitting still, and didn't wish to live any differently. I kissed my mother’s hand gently, assuring her I would be carefull, and went off to traverse the crowd, to see if anyone was as restless as me. 

I was 12 years of age, and had never known any boys close to me in years. If I could find one among the crowd, surely they would understand the drive to act I’d been told was common of my age and sex. On my search I found other children who looked to be similar to me in height and proportion, but each time they seemed beset by anxiety, and were not amiable to my approach. 

After several tries, and interruptions by the latest horror falling from the sky, I had just about resigned myself to never making a friend. That was when I heard the voice. 

He sounded nothing like me, in retrospect. Haughty, entitled, petulant, and rich. I didn’t care at the time, for he sounded to be a young man like me and that was what mattered most. 

Guards stood at the edge of the crowd, preventing peasantry from passing through and seeing the rest of the castle. I snuck past them anyways, closer to where the voice was coming from. 

He was in an argument with his father, the content of which I don’t remember. His father dismissed him easily and walked away, shoes clicking on the stone floor. The boy huffed, and muttered insolently. I peeked my head round the corner, eyeing him carefully. 

He was angry, I noticed, but not upset in the way other boys I’d tried to befriend had been. I paid very little attention to his dress, but it was impossible not to note that the fabric was finer and of better material than any I had ever seen, and dyed a deep red. 

I walked towards him slowly, and he looked up a few yards away. He inspected me curiously, taking in my peasant’s wear. I suddenly became conscious of the ragged rope around my waist, the threadbare tunic on my dusty skin. I tucked my hands behind my back in a feeble attempt to hide the dirt and calluses covering them. 

“Greetings!” I’d said naively. 

I received nothing in return. 

“Would you like to… uh…” I stuttered over my words, suddenly unsure of the proposal I had planned to make. 

The boy snorted with derision, held himself to his full height, and left without a word. 

And that was it. 

I had thought of the event frequently afterwards, gotten angry and sad and every other emotion not worth feeling. I realized, eventually, that there was nothing to be done about it. He was the lord’s son, I soon put together, and I was a serf. He could treat me however he pleased, for I was indebted to his family and his land. 

I began to feel a certain powerlessness after the event, couldn't help but notice how every aspect of my life was controlled by the lord’s house. The crop and livestock we paid them, the hard work in the fields, the bread that must be made at the water mill or not at all. All signals of a life not my own, a life that belonged to someone else. 

The same feeling that led me to the front door of this man, who I prayed would not remember my face. 

If he did, he did not show it. We had both grown much in the past five years, turned from boys to men somewhere along the way. My face could not have haunted his dreams the way his did mine, in any case.

As it was, I had been so lost in thought that I didn’t notice his movements, a careful step aside, pushing open the door and gesturing me to enter. I passed through with a measured gait, never pausing to take my eyes off him. 

He didn’t speak to invite me in, and it was only then that I noticed the large metal cross hanging from his neck, over his robes. I realized with a bit of a shock that in the time since I had seen him last, he must have become a monk, and that I was currently standing in a monastery. 

It wasn’t the worst place to be, considering. Monks served God, who I had learned on Sundays welcomed even the sick and weary into His home. Surely His servants followed His example. Despite the misfortune of this specific monk being my host, I might have found better accommodations there than on any manor. Besides, he hadn’t been anything but welcoming thus far, and I had no reason to believe he should suddenly remember me and inform his father. We didn’t even know each other’s names. 

I didn’t have much time for consideration, though, because soon enough he was walking briskly down a long hallway, and I knew to follow. We circumvented a central grassy area, passing under high arches until we arrived at a modest dining hall, where he lit another candle and placed it on the table. He looked at me then, and I was so frozen by his gaze that I took several seconds before realizing he expected me to sit. I did so, sliding onto the bench in front of the candle, and looked to him for more instruction. He only nodded, and walked through another archway. 

I saw him open a door, felt the cool wind blow again, and wondered if this would be the second time he left me in such a matter. The monastery was bare, as it should be from what I’d heard, so there wasn’t much else to do but wait. 

So I sat, growing warmer under the protection of the massive walls. The monk must have brought me to this hall with some purpose in mind, I reasoned, and a small part of me even wondered if he would return with food. 

I had not eaten since supper that evening, and found the meal hard to stomach over the anxiety of preparing my leave. I wondered what monks ate, if they ate at all. I lost myself to imagination for a minute or so, tracing patterns into the smooth wood of the table. I was tempted to hum, but did not know if it was allowed. 

He came back carrying a silver platter, on which sat a knife and a simple loaf of bread. It did not look so different from the black bread served at home. He brought no vegetables, meat, or milk with him; I wondered if monks could only eat bread. 

He set the platter on the table, cutting off the end of the loaf and handing it to me. He did not cut any for himself, instead sitting quietly, a modest distance from me on the bench. 

I could feel his gaze on me as I ate, but could not raise my own eyes to meet his. I finished my slice slowly, not wanting to appear greedy or ill-mannered. He cut me another. We continued on like that, in silence, until nearly half the loaf had gone. Then, I raised a hand to stop him from taking the knife to it once more. He nodded again, placed the knife on the platter, and returned to what I presumed was the kitchen. 

He did not take a seat upon his reappearance, instead hovering near me until I recognized he meant for me to stand as well. I did, and he promptly began walking down a new hallway. 

He moved quickly, his long robes concealing the movement of his feet. I followed in his stead, feeling for all the world like a dog chasing after his master. 

“Wait, you--” I called, forgetting myself. I slapped a hand to my mouth and froze, petrified. The monk stopped and turned, an eyebrow raised. He neither made to move down the hallway, nor toward me. He just stood, waiting. Eaiting for me to finish, I realized. 

“I…” suddenly I could not conjure a single word. “Am I permitted to speak?” I asked regardless, because it was the most pressing thought on my mind. 

The monk made an expression, perhaps one of the first to ever grace his face. If I had to put a name to it, I'd say he wanted to scoff at me. He shook his head as if laughing at my foolishness, and continued down the hallway. I jogged to reach him, the pain in my side making a brief reappearance. We settled into an even walk, feet moving in tandem. 

“I could’ve been speaking this whole time, and you just let me be silent?” I began to talk very much and very quickly, overcompensating for my earlier silence. 

“I guess you couldn’t have really told me, though, could you? I heard that monks couldn’t speak, you know, from a freedman who’d once-- from another freedman. He quartered at a building like this once, you know, told me he didn’t hear a single word the whole time he was there. Never mentioned if he himself spoke, though, so I didn’t really know when I got here. Figured it’d be more polite not to, and once I started it was quite difficult to stop, feels the same way with silence that it does with speaking to be honest. I do have to wonder, do you ever speak? Maybe to each other? I’m sorry, I know you won’t answer but I still have to--”

He cut me off, not with words but with a sharp turn off the hallway, into a sparse dormitory. 

There were several cots set up, but they were dusty and unused. This could not have been where the monks slept, I knew, and was likely intended for the use of guests like myself. The monk walked a few steps in and stopped by the nearest bed, indicating that this would be mine for the night. I walked over to it, tentatively setting down my pouch and rubbing the blanket between my fingers. I then pressed down on the mattress, testing the stuffing inside. 

“This is much finer than the straw back on the manor!” I marveled, almost unconsciously. Then I noticed what I had just admitted. 

I turned to see the monk, an expression of mild shock and recognition painting his features, and lost all hope that he hadn’t caught my admission. I held my hands up in defense, though I did not expect him to strike me. 

“I can’t go back,” I began. “I can’t. You have to understand that, I think I might die if I have to go back-- know it, even. You don’t understand what it’s like. I’ve just turned 17 and people are starting to talk. My family is starting to talk. About marriage, about which of the ladies on the manor are most beautiful, about how I should start thinking about settling down, having children and starting a new life together. How can you start a new life with someone when you didn’t even get to own the first one? How can you raise kids when they don’t belong to you? How could I stay?” 

I was breathing hard at that point, and sounded desperate. I just had to convince him. “How could you send me back, when you’re the one who made me realize I couldn’t stay in the first place? When you’re the one who started making everything crash down?”

The monk stopped me, leaning forward to grab my hands out of the air they’d been wildly gesticulating in.

He held them down and tilted his head to one side, asking a silent question. I took a moment then, to notice that his hood had fallen to lay around his neck, revealing the shaved top of his head. He looked at me, and I saw concern in his eyes. The image of it, such a humble and modest figure who seemed to want only to provide aide, shook me. I understood that he was not the boy I’d met many years ago, during that awful battle. 

“We’ve met before,” I explained, barely meeting his eyes. “Five years ago. There was an attack on the castle-- your castle. I wandered around, looking for a companion, and you… turned away.” 

It hurt to confess, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t just told him a dozen other things which I’d never before even whispered to another soul. “You made me realize how my life worked. That I did not control it. So I ran from it, because it’s better to freely live an unsafe life than to suffocate under the thumb of some lord.” My words came out bitter by the end. 

The monk was still holding my hands, and did not seem inclined to drop them. Instead, he peered into my eyes, as if looking at my very soul. 

An understanding passed between us, and I thought for a second that that would be it. That he would drop my hands, straighten up, then turn, and leave. Again. 

That was when he spoke to me. His voice was thin, rusty with disuse, and so different than it had been all those years ago. “You will be safe here,” he said. He did not turn away.

Somehow, I knew that I would.


End file.
